1. Field of the Invention
The invention is in the field of adhesive bandages and their packages, more specifically for one-handed placement and pre-determinate pressure on bleeding skin wounds.
2. Description of Prior Art
Adhesive bandages, and their packages, have been known in prior art for many years, perhaps the best known brand BAND-AID™ marketed by Johnson & Johnson. In general, such bandages consist of a non-rigid bandage tape which may be rectangular or circular in shape, with the skin-contact side being coated with a sticky adhesive, to which a centrally-located pad is attached to be placed on a skin wound, the periphery adhesive to be pressed to the skin surrounding the wound. Often, each bandage is individually enclosed in sterile protective tissues which are weakly cohesive or adhesive.
For such bandages, two hands are required to accurately remove the protective tissue and place the bandage on the wound.
Other adhesive bandages provide further concepts and materials, some of particular interest for the present invention and included hereunder by reference:
U.S. Pat. No. 6,124,522, to Mark Schroeder, provisional filed Nov. 24, 1998, teaching one-handed application of adhesive bandages using applicator tissue sheets, and a matchbook form of assemblage packaging;
U.S. Pat. No. 4,377,159, to Paul E. Hansen, filed Jun. 29, 1981, teaching pressure-pad bandages to provide localized pressure to a bleeding skin wound;
U.S. Pat. No. 2,280,506, to Richard T. Betts, filed Mar. 10, 1941, teaching an adhesive bandage strip with a cushioning pad to prevent pressure on foot wounds, the pad confined in a recess in the strip, the recess forcibly kept in form to prevent excess spreading of the pad under pressure.
Materials known in prior art adhesive bandages, and useful for the present invention, include: Bandage strip of PVC foam, or polyurethane, or cotton-nylon; Adhesives of acrylics and latex; and Pads of compressible-resilient foams using polyurethane, polyolefin, and the like, supplied by the 3M™ Company. These teachings are found in the prior art listed above, which are incorporated herein by reference.